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His legend grows on the sea as well as on land. In fact, he's become so well known that Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III), who claims to have invented jazz, comes on board to challenge 1900 to a piano duel -- sort of like a jazz version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

The film cuts clumsily between the past and the present (not the 1999 present, but a considerable period of time after 1900). At this later date, Max is a down-and-out jazzman who needs to hock his horn for a few scrappy dollars. We can tell by Max's slumped shoulders and drowsy eyes that he'd rather not sell the horn. He asks the crotchety old man behind the counter if he can give his horn one last blow.

It's a pretty tune. The shopkeeper ambles over to the Victorola and slaps down what sounds like a slab of concrete. Turns out, it's the same song. Max wants to know where he found the record. He pulled it out of some junk piano, he says, from a big ol' ship that they're getting ready to sink out in the harbor.

Max believes that 1900 is certainly still on that hunk of rusting scrap metal. Max starts his story. Cut back to the boat during its glory days. It looks a lot like the Titanic. Remarkably like the Titanic. So much like the Titanic that a cynic might say that Tornatore is using it as some sort of memory trigger. We know that big, epic stories happen on ships like the Titanic, because we've all seen "Titanic," a movie vastly superior to the one we're watching.

In what's supposed to be the film's most poignant moment, a man comes on board to record 1900. Like all record-company men, he promises him fame and fortune. Focusing on a young girl outside his porthole, 1900 begins to play. But he is uneasy with the idea of his music going anywhere without him. If he won't leave the boat, why should his music? He tries to give the master copy of the record to the beauty he recorded it for, but can't reach her in time. He smashes it into pieces. Apparently, Max stashes the pieces in the piano, which is how the old man has come across them.

At one point, 1900 tries to leave the ship, presumably to find his fair-haired maiden. He can't do it. For this reason -- back to the present now -- Max assumes that 1900 is still camped out on the soon-to-be demolished boat. The questions: Will he find him? If so, will he be able to save him? Do we care?

I won't spoil it with the answers, but I bet you can guess at least two out of three.
salon.com | Nov. 2, 1999

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